Bandh in Hebri against Kasturirangan report

Nearly 5,000 people take part in a protest at the service bus stand

December 18, 2014 11:53 am | Updated November 16, 2021 04:51 pm IST - Hebri (Udupi district):

A bandh was observed in Hebri and the surrounding areas in protest against the implementation of the K. Kasturirangan Panel’s report on conservation of the Western Ghats, here on Wednesday. All shops and business establishments were closed. The bandh call was given by the Kasturirangan Varadi Virodhi Horata Samiti.

Nearly 5,000 people staged a protest at the service bus stand and demanded that Hebri, Chara, Belanje, Kuchur, Nadpal and Kabbinale villages in Karkala taluk be kept out of the ambit of the report.

Addressing protestors, P. Balachandra Shetty, advocate, said that if implemented, the report would throw youth employed in rice mills and cashew factories out of work as these mills and factories had been included in the Orange Zone.

The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests had sent a circular six months ago asking the State government to form district-level committees, headed by Deputy Commissioners, to collect people’s opinion and study the physical features of the region sought to be included in the eco-sensitive areas and the buffer zone areas of the Western Ghats.

But the district had seen four Deputy Commissioners in a year and none of them had time to settle down and study the issue. “The people cannot be punished for administrative lapses,” he said. As per the report, an area of 10 km from the border of the Western Ghats would be a buffer zone but the problem arises as to the location of the borders of the Western Ghats, Mr. Shetty said.

Naveen Adyanthaya, president of the samiti, said that as per the report as many as 35 villages in Udupi district have been included in the ambit of the report and it would be impossible for farmers to conduct agricultural activities as the report banned chemical fertilizers.

Nearly 35 per cent of the area in these villages was reserve forest area and the remaining area had houses and commercial establishments, but the report included all these six villages in its ambit.

The people of these villages are not against the conservation of forests and the environment but the way the facts had been collected for the Report was not scientific, Mr. Adyanthaya said.

M. Satish Shetty, president of Taluk Horata Samiti, said that the farmers of this region always had to face eviction.

First, it was the Kudremukh National Park, then it was Tiger Reserve Project and now it was Kasturirangan Panel’s Report. “The people had to fight together against the report,” he said.

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